A huge fire at a prison in northern Honduras killed 103 inmates on Monday, all of them members of a violent street gang the government has targeted in a controversial crackdown. Police said the early-morning fire at the prison in the northern city of San Pedro Sula followed an explosion caused by a short circuit. Some inmates speculate prisoners threw a homemade incendiary device, or fire bomb, in the gang members' cell area. The fire spread rapidly through an area housing members of the infamous Mara Salvatrucha youth gang. Most died from suffocation and about 25 more were being treated in hospital. About 50 bodies, many of them charred, lay in rows on the floor of an outhouse in the ramshackle jail. Most were semi-naked and bore tattoos often sported by Central American gang members. It was the worst jail disaster in Honduras and the second time that dozens of gang members have been killed inside a Honduran prison in a little over a year. Inmates complained that security forces were slow to help on Monday and family members suspected it was no accident. About 200 people gathered outside the prison and screamed: "Murderers, murderers." Inmates who survived the fire said guards at the prison shouted abuse at the prisoners trapped inside a burning ward. "The police were saying to us, 'It's better that you die, dogs,"' said Javier Hernandez, a 23-year-old also known as "Sniper," who is serving 17 years for a gang murder. He said he stayed alive by crawling into a ventilation shaft in a toilet. Other inmates said guards opened up cells 2 hours after the fire started. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A prison guard looks at the bodies of 103 inmates, covered with plastic, who were killed when a fire raged through a Honduran prison in the town of San Pedro Sula, some 240 Km north of the capital Tegucigalpa, Honduras. (AFP/Orlando Sierra)